Classroom Smartboards bring school into 21st century

A student goes to the front of the class and rearranges letters on the board to spell out a word, but the letters aren’t held there with magnets. 

They’re not glued, stuck with Velcro, or hung. They appear on a Smartboard, an interactive whiteboard that displays information from a computer using a projector. 

The children don’t bat an eye when asked to work with the device, which is like a giant touch-screen monitor. “There are times when things go kaflooey for me and the kids will say, ‘Oh this is what you need to tap’,” said Connie Sawka, Grade 6 teacher at Jasper Elementary School. 

Sawka, who has been teaching since 1981, said the device brings her classroom into the 21st century. “The kids that are coming through the schools are very technologically savvy, so we have to start moving in that direction,” she said.

Teachers can use the boards to show video clips, do quizzes, or access the Internet, to name a few examples. Smart Technologies, the company that makes the Smartboard, has a website with activities for different subjects, available based on Alberta’s curriculum standards.

“We don’t have enough computers in the classroom for all the kids, but they can all see it at one time,” Sawka said. “It’s interactive, which is huge.”

The board can be used with Senteo input devices, which are like remote controls students can use to select their answers during a quiz, which the teacher can access immediately. 

This is a feature Sawka appreciates. “Instead of doing an exam or quiz, me marking it, me handing it back to the kids, it’s immediate, right there, right then,” she said. That way, if she sees that some children aren’t catching on, she can re-teach a lesson. “I can deal with it, especially for the kids who are more reluctant to ask for help.”

In a recent visit to Jasper Elementary, student Elena Kellis showed the Fitzhugh how the input devices work. “The teachers puts on questions you answer with this little thingy. I put ‘five’ because that’s my number, then it has my name,” she said, pointing to the board.

Sawka participated in a one-day lesson about Smartboards in Hinton in October, before they were installed. “There is a bit of a learning curve,” she said. “It’s trial and error. With teaching you make your own time and learn how to do these things.”

Smartboards have been used as part of video-conferencing units in Jasper schools before, but November they were introduced for the first time into local classrooms.

Last summer, the province gave the board $526,000 to spend on technology over three years to ensure every classroom would have a computer.

“GYRD has had that for quite some time,” said Nicole Merrifield, communications manager for the division. So the school board decided to re-define what a 21st-century or professional classroom would look like.

They envisioned not only a computer for the teacher’s use, but also a professionally-mounted Smartboard with a wireless keyboard, mouse, speakers, projector, as well as the required software. The boards aren’t simply hung, either. 

When installing them, a team assesses the room, determines the best spot for it, then clears the wall and paints it, to create a professional space. The entire installation runs at about $5,000.

As funding rolls in, GYRD plans to get a Smartboard into every classroom, ideally by the end of 2011.

The number of Smartboards purchased for each of GYRD’s 18 schools depended on the number of students who already have access to one. Jasper Elementary and the Jr./Sr. High School each received two from the board.

The elementary school installed a total of four boards, after opting to pay for two in addition to the ones coming from GYRD. A random draw decided which rooms would get a Smartboard.

Principal Raymond Blanchette Dubé said it’s pretty interesting to see the applications coming out of having the children more actively involved in their education.

“It they’re doing a math lesson on flips, for instance, or the transitions of objects, they can actually do that on Smartboard,” he said. “It brings it up close and personal, that’s for sure.”